Brother
by the author formerly known as
Summary: All Emmett knows is that when Edward was living, he considered Jasper Hale more like his brother than he did Emmett. Some days, Emmett isn't sure that's a crime that can be forgiven. COMPLETE


**Warning: Substance abuse, mild violence and swearing. This story contains religious concepts, such as homophobia, that you may find offensive. My intent is not to offend but to entertain. This is one of those pieces where I wanted to write about a topic but was too goddamned lazy for original fiction. aka everyone is out of character.  
**

_Brother_

There is knocking at the door. Emmett stumbles, grabs a side table that is less sturdy than it looks. He holds on to the wall for support, shuffling along sideways around shattered glass. Emmett's vision swims, and he knows he is drunk. But that's okay. Emmett's been drunk before, after all. He's as used to walking on a floor that slants when he moves as on any other floor.

If Rosalie were here, the glass that slices Emmett's foot would probably have been cleaned up. Emmett's wife is many things, but she is not a housemaid. And she's not here. And she hasn't been.

The doorknob is a hassle, but finally he is peering through bloodshot eyes at a surly blond.

"Hale... what... what you want?"

Jasper Hale looks at Emmett through clear blue eyes and his upper lip twists. Emmett hasn't spoken to Jasper in years, though he has been at many family events where Jasper sits across the table like an unwanted elephant in Edward's old seat.

"Wasted as usual, I see," Jasper mutters, shoving past Emmett.

His balance is difficult to regain, but he manages. With a few lilting steps he makes his way halfway across the room, and there Emmett collapses onto his sofa.

Standing in Emmett's living room, Jasper Hale slaps his gloves in his hand, shaking the snow from his hair. He observes the room with a keen eye, taking in the glass, the empty scotch bottles, the broken twisted metal on the floor that once was a television.

"You know," he comments, though Emmett does not want his opinion and never will, "This is exactly the reason she left you. You're drunk more often than you're sober, and you've turned into a goddamn slob."

"F'k off, Hale..." Emmett mumbles into his arm, resting his forehead across his biceps. "Why're you here?"

"I've come to pick up Rosie's things."

"So get them and get... out."

Jasper disappears into another room, and Emmett wishes he would disappear into the third dimension or... something.

To Emmett, before Jasper Hale is the man who gave Rose away at their wedding because her father is dead, before he's the guy Emmett beat the shit out of in high school for taking his little sister's virginity, before he's a White Sox fan like Emmett, he is Edward's best friend. Emmett isn't sure if that's a crime that can be forgiven.

Edward always said Jasper was like a brother to him. _You have a brother_, Emmett wanted to rage in Edward's face. _You have me_.

Well, he can't say it now.

While Hale is making noise in the next room, Emmett's eyes train blankly onto the same spot they have been regularly seeking out for a long time now. Emmett doesn't watch the television anymore. Instead, he watches the portrait of Edward on the wall and wishes it would talk to him.

Emmett stares at the photo of his brother that is the one thing he hasn't been too close to smashing in the week since Rosalie left. Or the year since sobriety left. Edward smiles back eternally on the day of his high school graduation, so young and so hopeful, eager to step into a life that would chew him up and spit him out.

Emmett breathes in deeply, hoping he can push the sob building in his throat away. Instead it sounds like a massive snore.

Emmett buries his face in his hands, staring between the cracks of his fingers at Edward's photo, rocks back and forth, counts. Counts to ten, because that's what their mother used to tell them to do when they were upset. Ten seconds between every other thing he and Edward had said to each other in the last many years– they were always upset, always counting, one, two–

Emmett never makes it past two. One, two, faith and hope, the only things lighting the darkness nowadays.

"Wher–" Hale cuts himself off as he enters the living room. "...Cullen? ...Hey, Emmett."

Hale sits on the sofa next to Emmett, and he is achingly aware that this man sat next to Edward talking on Saturday afternoons when Emmett tried to forget that his brother was out there somewhere. Together they stare at the portrait. It is the first time someone has seen the same thing Emmett sees in many years.

"Some say... I am to blame." Emmett's voice comes out slow and gravelly from alcohol and something else, something thicker and more painful to swallow.

Hale seems about to respond, but Emmett shrugs sadly, and finally looks anywhere but at Edward's smiling face.

"Some days, I feel the same," he confesses.

"I think... I think... you were part of it, yes," Hale says, slowly, hesitantly. Sometimes scotch makes Emmett's words come easier, so he offers Hale the bottle. Hale stares, first at the bottle and then at Edward's portrait. He winces, swills, and swallows, and winces again. He continues, "But– a lot of things affected him toward the end, you know. Not just you, but– society, I guess." Hale sighs. "God, mostly, I think."

But Emmett shakes his head, because he knows that God would never support what Edward did.

And Emmett knows God's word, he knows it inside and out, and he can recite many passages by heart: _Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple._

Emmett needs to know this passage by heart, because his fingers have worried over the page so many times it has faded from his Bible. As if it is no longer part of His Word. But he knows it is, and for as long as he feels the way he does staring at Edward's portrait, it will be.

Emmett no longer needs to rely on words written by someone else to know it is a sin: The gaping hole in his heart since Edward shot a gaping hole in his own face tells him it can't have been right.

* * *

Edward's favourite fucking seedy bar.

Flickering fluorescent lights and a dance floor called the blood bath and maybe lesbians snorting crack from each other's breasts in the bathroom. The smell of sex, sweat, and sin. But more importantly: Jasper and Emmett and drunken chorus.

"Oh...!_ Brother _of... _mine_!"

Their singing is off-key, and Emmett thinks it might be pissing off everyone in the bar, but he doesn't care. Because everyone in the bar is pissing him off. By existing.

Emmett stumbles against the bar, and Jasper stumbles with him. They stumble together, the way brothers stumble from the same womb and learn to walk. Hopeful first steps, Emmett thinks.

"I know... 's... I mean... He was your brother, but... mine, too, if it makes sense," Jasper mumbles as they climb precariously onto the stools.

Emmett shrugs because it must make sense. It made sense enough for Edward to tell Jasper, while he was still living, that this was his favourite bar. Emmett never knew such things. He never really wanted to.

He looks around, not able to see much in the dim light of the bar and the fuzz of his mind.

"So... this is where he came, huh? He just fucking... hung around in this filth."

Jasper shrugs, or so Emmett thinks– it may have just been a strange attempt to regain balance in his seat.

"He likes it because... no one... no one nice comes here. So no one cares. He did like it, that is."

Someone takes a seat on Emmett's other side. He examines him, trying to decide if this man can be called 'nice.' He looks like he's not showered in a long time and doesn't care either, so Emmett concludes no.

The man, slight with brown hair and wide brown eyes, notices Emmett's staring.

"What?"

Emmett rolls his shoulders in response. "Me an... me n Jasper here..." He gestures to Jasper, thumping his shoulder. The warm body is mostly still beneath his hand, and Emmett looks over to find Jasper passed out on the bar next to him. "Well... Jasper is asleep, but me and Jasper are visitin' my brother's favourite bar.

"He's dead, you see," Emmett continues.

The man frowns. "How did he die?"

Emmett holds up two fingers to his forehead, cocks his thumb. "Boom."

The man looks away, sipping from his drink. After a while, he says, "My boyfriend went the same way."

"Cuz he was gay?" Emmett asks. "That's what happened to my brother."

The man looks over at him with his wide eyes, but this time his frown is angry. "Your brother didn't kill himself because he was gay, I can assure you of that. He killed himself because people couldn't _accept_ that he was gay."

Emmett shrugs, unsure of the difference.

"What's yer name?" he asks the man.

He gets a long, hard stare in response. Finally an answer: "Swan."

"Weird name," Emmett notes.

"It's my last name. No one calls me by my first name."

The man turns back to his drink, but Emmett persists.

"Why're you here?"

The response comes in a whisper. "Do you know how it feels to lose someone you love? I just– he would be here, and sometimes I sort of imagine he'll show up."

Emmett thinks of sitting in front of the door for three straight days after Rosalie walked out. He thinks of sitting in church for 6 months after Edward's death, waiting, for who he didn't know.

"It was my boyfriend's favourite bar, too. He liked it because... No one here cared that he was gay."

Jasper is awake and he slurs, "S'why Edward liked it. So he... tolds me."

The man covers his mouth as if he may throw up or cry– either one sounds unpleasant to Emmett.

"Did he– leave... a note? Um, my boyfriend never did. I always wondered why he never left me one... Like maybe I wasn't important enough to him that I... deserved a note. Maybe people who kill themselves for things like this just don't leave notes." The man's smile is thin but hopeful.

"I got a letter," Emmett declares, "From him." Emmett frowns. "A sad letter. It came a long time after he died. Half a year. That was... that was 12 months ago... next week."

"What did it say?" the man asks eagerly, "Anything about– his life? I mean... as a gay person."

Emmett blinks. "I knew nothing... not a thing... of Edward's life as a gay person. No one did. All we know is that he was gay, and he came to this bar. It said about... it said I wasn't a very good brother."

"Oh." Swan sounds let down.

"But," Emmett concludes bitterly, "Edward wasn't a very good Catholic." Conspiratorially, he leans in, whispers loudly,"Being gay is a sin."

Emmett is surprised when Swan smiles sadly. "You really think so? I think– I mean, I don't know much about religion, I admit. I have my faith, and I interpret pretty loosely the things they say in church... But I think... Edward–" Swan clears his throat and wipes his eyes, smearing grime across his face. "I mean, he sounds like he was in the same boat as my boyfriend, and he always acted like, by us being together, he was getting away with something wrong. But– Have you ever been in love?" Emmett nods, and Jasper nods. It is another thing they do together now, Emmett thinks. Nodding, that is. Nodding and wondering about Edward and death. "I loved him. And– it was the most pure thing I've ever felt. I don't think the love I had for him could be wrong, because nothing else got me closer to– God."

Emmett frowns while he sways, half to the music in his head and half with the fog of his many drinks.

"But," Emmett finally murmurs. "It says it's a sin."

Emmett doesn't look at those words anymore, the way he can't look at the passage he has worn away. But he knows they are there.

Swan nods. "I know," he says sadly. "But I feel worse knowing that I never helped him than I do about loving him. I just don't think loving a person could ever be wrong compared to hurting a person."

"Did you go to church?" Emmett asks. "Our parents always did, and we did... too. And they were mad when Edward was gay."

"I went to church with my boyfriend," Swan tells Emmett. "A small one, downtown. We never went to his usual church, because he didn't want people to know about me. I was... his secret."

"He never told people he was dating you?"

Swan shakes his head, and Emmett sees a little droplet land in the man's beer. The crying has begun. Emmett thinks it is time for him and Jasper to leave.

"It was bad enough people knew he was gay. Toward the end, he used to pretend for his family that he would– try... not to be. But he came home to me at night. And I was like, this shameful little thing he kept in his closet."

Emmett stands on shaky legs, grabs Jasper's elbow.

Jasper slurs, "We'll pray for your boyfriend," but Emmett doesn't know why he would say that.

The man smiles a little, and the tears on his face are obvious, because they cut clean paths through accumulated dirt. Emmett thinks Swan must not take very good care of himself, now that his boyfriend is dead.

"Wha's his name?" Emmett asks, because they need his name to pray.

"Maybe if you just pray for people like him, it'll help someone who hasn't already died."

Emmett shrugs, and Jasper shrugs, and it is another one of those things that Jasper and Emmett do together now.

Emmett thinks of Swan's story. He said he had his faith, but it seemed to Emmett it must have been pretty pale faith compared to his love, if he would abandon it to commit sin. Emmett had faith, too. It burned within him like a torch, lighting the caverns inside a heart too dark now to see his brother in.

* * *

"What did the letter say?" Jasper asks. They have been stumbling in a direction neither of them knows. In the darkness of night, it's hard to see which way they might be headed. It's hard to see where they've been coming from to begin with.

"It said. It said I made Edward sad, because of all the people, my... I was meanest. And I was the person he wanted to be the... least meanest."

Jasper nods. "He loved you. Even when you told him–" Jasper cuts himself off, grimacing. His eyes directed at Emmett are the most troubling thing Emmett has seen through his alcohol-induced fog.

Emmett curls his arms and his shoulders and his head in toward his center. He wishes the darkness could envelop him completely, so no one can ever look at him the way Jasper does again.

"I didn't– mean it."

"I know. We all knew. All of us except Edward," Jasper says quietly.

"I was always so mad at him," Emmett says. "For betraying our... family. And our God. But I didn't mean I'd actually rather he... shoot himself than eat dinner with us."

The worst feeling on earth is sobering up in the rain while you wander the earth at night with the man your brother loved more than you. Jasper sits on the cement sidewalk and Emmett stares at him sitting there.

He counts: one, two–

"I hate you for sitting," he finally chokes out, unable to finish the sentence, though he wants to. He opens his mouth but there is only croaking noises rather than the rest of his thought.

"What?"

"In Edward's seat," he finally manages. "Because he died and then they let you sit there."

Jasper hunches his shoulder and rests his head on his knees. "Some times, I feel the same. I wish Edward had his seat, not me."

Emmett collapses next to Jasper, his bulk practically crashing into the sidewalk. "I'm his brother," he mumbles, rolling onto his side. "So it's my job to keep him on track. And I tried to."

Jasper frowns. "I don't keep Rosalie on track."

"You came to get her shit," Emmett accuses bitterly, thinking of his wife whose absence is eclipsed only by the portrait of Edward hanging in the living room.

"Not to keep her on track."

"Then why?"

"Because I love her... You tried to keep Edward 'on track' as a Catholic, not as your brother. As your brother, all Edward needed to do for you was love you." Jasper looks away, his face screwing up. "And he did."

Emmett lets the rain wash over him, unsure and terrified, and he says nothing, and eventually Jasper lies down next to him. Together, they stare up hopefully into the black clouds, rain pelting their face.

"Ow, my eye," Jasper mutters.

Emmett looks over at him lying there, clutching his eye which has been brutally attacked by a rain drop.

"Fuck, if I could go back in time, I'd kill that raindrop."

"That makes no sense," Emmett tells Jasper. "You can't kill a raindrop."

"If I could go back in time," Jasper amends, "I'd shut my eyes."

If Emmett could go back in time now, he'd open his.

* * *

Jasper shushes Emmett, and Emmett mumbles irately, "Why should I? I'm not a vandalist, I'm a family member. I'm allowed in the fucking cemetery... You're the one who hasn't cause to be here."

"Fuck you," Jasper rasps, "Edward was my brother."

Emmett counts, breathing deeply, one, two– the number he has never gotten past. _Two_ brothers, Emmett and Edward, not Jasper.

"Fuck_ you_!" Emmett shouts. "Edward had a brother!"

"If Edward had a_ brother_, he wouldn't be_ dead_!" Jasper shrieks in his face. "Because someone would have fucking been there for him, and someone wouldn't have suggested he should shoot himself!"

Emmett punches as easily as he stumbles.

* * *

They lie beside the grave stone, letting the rain lick their wounds for them. His name, and the day he died and the day he came screaming into this world are the only words. No clever epitaph for dead Edward Cullen.

Emmett rubs the bruise he feels forming on his jaw, while Jasper cradles an arm that might be broken.

"We fought about the gravestone," Emmett says eventually. "Mom wanted it to say,_ Beloved brother and son_, but I told her he wasn't. Beloved. All Alice ever did was cry. And Dad was just– Dad was just quiet, all the time. So now all he has are these fucking dates."

"And the dash in between."

"Huh?"

"He has the dash in between, too," Jasper murmurs, and he runs the fingers of his good hand over the little mark. "Which is probably the most important part of all, when you think about it."

Emmett touches the mark, too, the tiny line that represents all the time Edward spent on earth, every moment passed between those two dates. One little line for everything Emmett and his brother did together.

"If we could change it right now, what would you want it to say?" he asks Jasper.

Jasper frowns. "I would have carved, _brother of mine_."

Emmett smiles. "Me, too. That's what I would have put."

* * *

"I don't think being lonely is a sin," Emmett tells Jasper. They are kicking stones along the ground between them, a back and forth game of soccer as they walk down the wet, winding path.

"I don't either."

Being scared and alone, after all, was something Emmett had done many times without feeling guilty. Wishing that the world could be a little more gentle, or wanting the loneliness and the fear to end– well, maybe those things weren't sins either.

But Emmett wouldn't have given up like Edward had. His faith would have kept him going. His faith and hope, and– maybe something more.

Jasper shuts the gate of the cemetery behind them. He looks up, into the sky where the sun peaks between clouds like hopeful hands grasping for an embrace.

Emmett doesn't gaze at the rising sun with him, but instead down the street at the slowly approaching form. A Sunday mourner.

He sighs, and he and Jasper walk shoulder to shoulder away from the cemetery. They are caked in mud, but the man doesn't glance twice at them as he wanders into the place where the dead lie, and where Emmett and Jasper had lain together with them.

Emmett halts abruptly, causing Jasper to stop and peer questioningly into his face. He turns to look at the cemetery, at the retreating back of the brown-haired man going to stand by the grave of someone he has loved and lost.

"Edward never talked to you about... his relationships?"

"Even with me, Edward spent half the time pretending he could turn being gay off." Jasper sighs at the ground. "I never cared that he– he loved men. I wish he wouldn't have cared. I don't have a brother anymore because of it."

"Sure you do," Emmett answers, and for the first time he thinks not of empty caverns within him but of an empty, waiting future that he could enter already equipped with everything he needed. He breathes deeply, counting: one, two, three– Emmett, Edward... and perhaps now Jasper.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love


End file.
